


Spies Three, Two Soon to Be

by wavewright62



Category: The 13 Clocks - James Thurber
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Pre-Canon, Puns & Word Play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-26 20:11:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17752691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wavewright62/pseuds/wavewright62
Summary: Set just before the events of the book, the spies of the Duke of Coffin Castle convene in its corridors to share intelligence, so to speak.





	Spies Three, Two Soon to Be

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Resilur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Resilur/gifts).



> I went through the chocolate Box sign-up summary looking for requests for a different fandom altogether, when I stumbled upon your request letter and prompts for this fandom. I couldn't believe my eyes! I have loved this book unreservedly since I first read it as a child (many years ago), and I had no idea there was any fandom for it. I cannot hope to achieve the sublime effect of James' Thurber's humour, but I hope you enjoy my silly attempt.
> 
> NB: The Golux is incognito as the spy Listen here.

"My hands are cold."

"What did you say, Princess?"

"I said, my hands are cold," the princess Saralinda fussed at Hark. "Here, feel." She brought one luminous hand out of her fur muff, and bade to lay it on Hark's sleeve.

Hark inclined his head and backed away. "Have a care, Princess, your hand is the only warm hand in this castle."

"Well, then look," her eyes kindled as she held up the hand to the freesias in her hair. The fragrant blossoms wilted and drooped. 

Hark sucked on his lower lip. He could hear the Duke limping about in the Oak Room nearby, snarling at the stubbornly frozen clocks and crooning at the beetles. He was up to the part where he was likening the sheen on the beetles’ wings to the light in Saralinda’s eyes. Shuddering, he tried to direct Saralinda away from the Oak Room.

“Hark, Hark, my hand, it is so col– I wish him well.” The witch’s spell took hold; Saralinda could only utter one phrase when she was in the presence of the Duke.

The Duke’s cold excuse for laughter clattered onto the flagstones of the corridor. He kicked a random chuckle aside as he approached Hark and Saralinda. The single eye behind his monocle gleamed at her in the dim light. “Good evening, my dear. There are no suitors tonight, I fear. A score of years have you lived here, and soon, so soon, shall you be one-and-twenty.”

“I wish him well,” Saralinda intoned, her eyes gleaming like beetles.

“’He’ is hypothetical, a zilch,” the Duke sneered, “a Theorem, easily burnt to ash in the flame of a single candle.” He slashed his cane at the phantoms of suitors as he limped away, muttering imprecations upon their hypothetical zatches.

“I wish him well,” Saralinda said as she turned to Hark, then whined as the Duke disappeared around a corner, “Why, why, why, don't we have a heating device in this horrible castle." Returning the fair but faintly blue hand to the fur muff, she wafted down the corridor in the opposite direction from the Duke, leaving a hopeful scent of violets in her wake.

"A Device," Hark hummed to himself. Then louder, "Did you hear that?"

"Not a Mere Device," came a faint echo from the shadows.

“Did I hear what?” A figure dressed similarly to Hark, in the same black hooded cloak and velvet mask, stepped from the Oak Room, torch in hand. The shadows cast by the torch danced in the corridor, making the beetles scurry for cover. His voice was soft and sibilant, sending slivers of shivered sound slithering past Hark, “Did I hear the Princess complaining? Surely not.”

“Many names have I, and you can call me many things, but Shirley is not among them.”

“I thought I heard you skulking, Listen,” Whisper held the torch aloft to see if Listen cast a shadow, but he succeeded only in setting a low-hanging cobweb to smouldering. “Say, do you know what I saw in the town today?,” he wheedled softly, ignoring the imprecations raining upon his head from the aggrieved spider.

“A tent for a tournament of travelling taletellers,” Hark smirked, “or perhaps just a new seller of doughnuts and coffee?”

“Aye,” Whisper considered, “and it’s already teeming with tosspots and toffs. But tch, listen here-”

“Is he still? I can never tell,” Hark interrupted, looking around him. “But don’t tell him, you know how Listen gets when he has coffee.” The grinning spy sensed a shuffle in the shadows from the chagrined spy.

“SSzzt!,” Whisper hissed, “do you want to hear or not?” Hark bowed grandly with a flourish of his arm, and Whisper continued, “A wandering minstrel has come to the town, a thing of shreds and patches.”

“What is that to me?”

Whisper’s smile rivalled the Duke’s in its icy gleam. “He checked into the Cock & Bull,” the spy whispered.

Hark’s eyes widened in the gloom, “I see.” Whisper spread out his hands in an expressive shrug. Hark nodded, “Right. You think he’s in disguise. Truth, how can a minstrel afford to stay there?” He snorted, “Although it wouldn’t be our first. Remember the last Prince who came after Saralinda’s hand? Now, _he_ was a fine minstrel.”

Whisper sniggered, “But, what a pity! The Duke hates names that are unpronounceable symbols.”

Hark nodded absent-mindedly, “He thought it maybe started with X, and yet didn't. Even the geese were charmed by that Prince, and that even before he was fed to them. Now I know what it sounds like when geese cry.”

“I rather coveted his purple raiment,” Listen chimed in.

“He should have been tasked with singing down the noon, or turning November in to June, or breaking bread with the man in the moon,” Hark lamented.

“Pah,” Whisper scoffed, “I should have liked to seen him sent to hunt the thorny boar of Borythorn. His high-heeled shoes and fancy dance moves would not have served him well.”

“Anyone can _hunt_ the Thorny Boar of Borythorn.” Listen gave a low chuckle, “But, do you know, he is actually quite easy to find - right here in this castle.” Hark gave a snort. “It is the truth, as I know it. For you see, I once served in Borythorn. The Thane had two close aides, one to act as his jester, and one to act as his conscience; one to ease his burden, the other to increase it. I was the latter, there to goad him into doing the right thing. But alas! He found my admonitions dull, and called me a thorn in his side. Why, he set his riders upon me, to hunt me down and run me out of the kingdom.” Listen paused for dramatic effect, but getting none from the other two spies, he continued, “And thus, ‘tis _I_ who was the Thorny Bore of the Thane of Borythorn.”

Hark stopped and stared at the doorjamb where he thought Listen might be. “That’s _terrible,_ ” he sputtered. A spattering of spiders scattered from the slider where Listen might be hiding.

“Yes, I know,” came Listen’s voice from his other side. “Fortunately, I was more fleet in those days, and they never found me. In time, the legend of my escape reached the ears of the Duke. I wish he could appreciate the irony.”

Hark shook his head. "Shreds and patches. Let us go see what this minstrel is made of." Setting off down the corridor, his voice receding, "if I am fortunate, he is made of doughnuts."

"I should like a jelly doughnut, please, Hark." A warm breeze, a soft light in the gloom, as Saralinda came back down the corridor toward Whisper. "Have we a fire in the great room?," she hesitated with her hand on the door, "I do so want to warm myself." She pulled the door open a crack and peered inside, whispering, "If the room is empty, tha - I wish him well." Whisper shivered as a cloud crossed the Princess' brow. Closing the door gently, she pouted, "So much for that. Maybe I should have asked Hark for a mochaccino as well."

Whisper bowed low, sweeping his arm out in a grand gesture. "My lady, I shall go and enquire whether the furriers have any new skins available. Perhaps they have some ermine, or mink, or downy gryphon, suitable for making my lady a new set of warm mittens."

From the Oak Room came a shout that made the slime on the walls freeze, “I HEARD THAT!”

“Cheezit, the Duke!,” Whisper shrank into the shadows. Saralinda fled, the violets in her wake smelling somewhat less hopeful.

The Duke's voice came limping in cadence with his gimping, “You dare! The effrontery!" He doomed into the gloom of the corridor. "The geese will breakfast well in the morn, Whisper!,” his cackle made the frozen slime crackle. Receiving no reply, he withdrew back into the room.

Crunching chunks of crackle and a chitter of the chuckle in a corner of the corridor were the only clues to Listen's footfalls as he left to join his fellow spies in town.


End file.
